My thinking here during most of my spell creations was that I know how I play a game; once I find an exploit, I hammer it home until I can brutalize everything. There are some things in the game like that, of course, but if you could amp up certain skills within the first 4-5 months of game play, you could cruise through the game with hardly a fail, which would kill the fun. I agree with the drug concept in that it is temporary. If the increase is temporary, it forces you to make choices about how to spend your time, i.e. do you want a larger increase in skills that is only temporary, or do you want to spend your time permanently increasing said skill by marginal steps? That was my thinking for my spells, but I can't speak for the rest of BC